10 practical ideas for hidden storage from craftsmen

Narrow drawers

If the furniture was not made to order, then there will definitely be a narrow place that can also be used to advantage. And it doesn’t matter what kind of room it is: on a narrow pull-out rack or shelf (it all depends on the area) you can store from tubes of cream to jars of preserves.

Important: Such shelves can be made independently, and their creation does not require the qualifications of a carpenter; a minimum set of tools, the availability/purchase of any wood-based material, furniture wheels and fasteners will be sufficient.

Hide behind the mirror

As a rule, mirrors occupy a significant part of the vertical surfaces and practical people have also found a use for them. If you place a large mirror not just on the wall, but make an appropriate structure under it and attach piano hinges, you will get a secluded place to store hygiene products, small items or jewelry. Everything will depend on the location and width of the box.

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A very convenient table with a secret for a summer cottage

The original high-quality table, complemented not only by benches, but also by a built-in sandbox, has a relatively low weight. Moving it to any corner of the site will not be difficult. This will provide a place to play regardless of the vicissitudes of the weather. An additional bonus will be the fact that the younger generation can be visible all the time. All you need to implement the idea: a supply of boards, a simple tool and the desire to make a mobile children's area with your own hands.

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The amount of board needed will depend on the desired dimensions. The number of boards needed to make table tops and benches may also vary. Using a wide board will reduce the number of parts.

Approximate consumption of boards and materials:

• box - 4 parts
• legs - 4 boards with an oblique cut at 45 degrees
• crossbars for attaching benches - 2 parts
• benches - 4 boards
• tabletop-lid - 5 boards
• sheet of plywood or chipboard for the bottom of the box
• internal partitions for the box - 2 parts
• slats for lid
• sufficient screws
• glue

Having made the appropriate markings, we cut and assemble the box.

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We determine the place where the legs join, lubricate with glue and tighten with clamps for better adhesion.

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We attach the legs to the box using self-tapping screws. We supplement the box with internal partitions.

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Having laid a sheet of plywood on a flat surface, we join it to the body of the future sandbox and make the appropriate markings.

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We cut out the bottom of the required size and attach it to the bottom of the box. Using clamps, we supplement the legs with crossbars for attaching the benches. If desired, additionally coat the joints with glue.

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Having determined the exact location of the benches, we connect them to the crossbars. Then we lay out the boards that will make up the tabletop on the box and determine their exact location.

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We attach the outer boards of the tabletop to the box. We join the remaining boards of the table top, which will also serve as a removable lid, turn them over and fasten them together using additional slats.

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Then all that remains is to turn the lid over. Even children can fill the side compartments with toys and the middle compartment with sand.

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The final touch is smoothing out the roughness. Fine sandpaper will help here. If desired, the multifunctional gaming table can be covered with stain, varnish and even painted. On one of the outer boards of the tabletop we make a through hole for an umbrella.

An umbrella secured in this way is guaranteed to remain in place even in strong gusts of wind.

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The children's pleasure knows no bounds. Here you can even sculpt little beads with comfort. Having played enough in the sand, all that remains is to shake it off inside the box and return the lid to its place.

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More details regarding the arrangement of a multifunctional gaming table for children in the video below:

Beauty and convenience

When creating storage systems, you should not forget about the aesthetic side, because housing should not only be comfortable, but also beautiful. Therefore, when covering one or another part of the free space, it is worth considering how this can be done more elegantly.

Sliding/folding doors can be especially convenient for storage systems in attic-type rooms. In a place where the space narrows, you can create a wonderful dressing room/closet and hide all your belongings behind decorative doors. If funds allow, then it is better to fully utilize the side space with capacious storage systems.

Hiding places in ordinary furniture

The simplest example: if you need to securely hide an envelope or a flat package, simply tape it to the bottom of the drawer on the bottom side. Even if someone goes through all the drawers of your desk, in most cases he will hardly think to look under them. For greater confidence, use the lowest drawer so that inspecting its bottom is also physically inconvenient.

The same principle applies to hiding places under the seats of chairs, but in our opinion, this is less reliable: chairs are often lifted to be rearranged, and they can also accidentally fall. The probability of quickly discovering such a cache is very high, so it is better to use this original storage method for something not very valuable.

It is quite common to store valuables in a piano. By its design, this musical instrument has a lot of free space inside, which can be perfectly used to place anything: from household supplies to important documents. Of course, provided that there is no professional musician living in your family who will not allow you to treat the instrument so frivolously.

Hiding places are often installed under furniture - in the empty space between the legs, which is covered by a decorative facade. Someone builds a convenient drawer there. Or you can simply find a flat box of suitable size, put valuables in it and put it away under the closet. You can also make the simplest double bottom inside a drawer yourself.

Keep your bathroom walls clear

As a rule, all “soap and soap” products in the bathroom are placed either on hanging shelves or simply cluttered with them on the sides of the bathroom itself. To avoid such clutter and have all the necessary bottles and jars at hand, you can make secret or folding drawers. It is convenient to organize them behind a screen that covers all communications, and it will be much more convenient to get them out of there if you think through the opening system.

Use over the full head of the bed

The head of the bed can be used more rationally, because it can hold not only a pillow during sleep or decorate the interior. There are models of beds that already have secret drawers for bedding built into the headboard, but craftsmen can do this themselves. And if you can’t fit pillows or blankets into them, then you can definitely create a hiding place with the most unexpected things.

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Small pieces of furniture can also be used for storage

No one is surprised by folding tables and chairs anymore, but they can be useful for other purposes. For example, in a seemingly ordinary chair or a tiny dressing table, you can also hide something or simply put small things out of sight so as not to create a mess in the apartment.

It's always better to see than to read or hear a bunch of useful tips on how to arrange a tiny kitchen. An example of arranging a real kitchen with an area of ​​6 sq.m. with a commentary from the owner herself, it really proves that even in such a tiny space you can place all the necessary things and equipment without compromising comfort and aesthetics.

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Secret rooms behind stairs and closets

Guests of your home will never guess that behind the ordinary wooden staircase leading to the second floor there is a library and a home office. You can get into the secret rooms of the house by “pushing” the stairs up, which can be done very quickly and easily using a modern remote control. An unusual idea to create a mobile folding staircase and secret rooms belongs to the design company Creative Home Engineering, whose designers were involved in arranging the interior of a stylish private home.

A secret passage to the library and home office, hidden behind the stairs.

A secret passage hidden behind a bookcase is the most popular design idea, which is often played out in books and films. Just imagine the surprise of your friends or children when you move one book in the closet and show them a secret door leading to the living room, dining room or other rooms of the house!

An unusual, original idea that will appeal to both adults and children. A massive bookcase made of natural wood up to the ceiling with a unique secret will be an excellent addition and decoration to any room in a house or apartment.

Stylish retro style bookcase with a secret door.

A door leading to another hidden room can be installed right at the back of the wardrobe.

Such a hidden room can perform not only a decorative function, but also become a reliable refuge in the event of an invasion of robbers, if only you and your household know the secret of opening this room, the room will be equipped with the necessary means of communication and it will not be possible to get into it in any other way, including from the street side.

So, in the photo below we see one of these secret wardrobes, the massive wooden wall of which serves as a door and leads to another room of the house.

Wardrobe with secret door.

Advantages and disadvantages of furniture with secrets and hiding places

Furniture of this kind is structurally quite interesting, because it demonstrates the master’s capabilities in decorating seemingly ordinary interior items with various secrets.

Their presence always had its own meaning: here it was possible to hide something that was not necessary for others to see.

There are a huge number of options for their arrangement. Some of them are well known. Today you won’t surprise anyone with a built-in small safe, which is disguised as one of the sections of cabinet furniture. Large sums of money and particularly important documents and other papers not intended for public viewing are usually stored in it.

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Starting from the 18th century, in any rich house one could find a secretary, or in the Russian version, a desk where the owner kept especially valuable documents: bills, money, jewelry.

Using secrets has many advantages, including:

• preventing unauthorized persons from accessing the contents of the cache;
• possibility of arrangement in various pieces of furniture and their elements;
• when made with your own hands - the originality of the design, excluding access to the hiding place of other people;
• self-production or individual order, ensuring structural exclusivity.

Various hiding places and secret drawers are often found inside antique furniture that has survived to this day.
There are disadvantages to this type of furniture, including:

• a mandatory sign is required by which you can find the cache if it is equipped in one of the identical pieces of furniture, in one of the chairs, for example;
• if a niche can only be opened with a special key or other device, it should have a separate storage place or, conversely, on a common bundle, but located only by the owner and easily recognizable by him;
• in case of force majeure, getting to the storage facility and taking away its contents will not be easy.

Their design has its advantages that ordinary tables and cabinets do not have, and features that are unique only to such products.

We build secret cabinets

Next, the fasteners are fixed; these can be wooden pegs or ordinary nails. We begin to prepare the cache: a half-open body of the box is formed from the remaining sections of boards. It is fixed to the main platform with self-tapping screws, leaving a niche inside. With a slight movement, this structure moves, revealing the hiding place.

The top of the drawer can easily be used as a shelf for hats. Now it’s worth talking about countertops and chests of drawers, where there is always the option of creating a hiding place. This is easy to do, just insert a double bottom inside. Using a chisel, grooves are cut around the entire perimeter of the box. A piece of plywood equal in size is prepared in advance. And is inserted into the prepared recesses. Or you can do it differently: take four planks and use nails to secure them 7 cm above the bottom. Also put plywood on top, and this will be enough to make a hiding place for important documents.

The most important. Don't forget the places where you make secret storage areas. It is advisable that children do not see them. If possible, decorate the furniture as discreetly as possible, as a natural element of the interior.

You can also make a hiding place in the bedside table by covering part of the internal space with a board. Make the partition removable from the outside by securing it to a chain. But it is important that only a narrow circle of people have access to it. Yes, the same chairs can easily be converted into hiding places, hiding jewelry, for example, in soft upholstery, or drilling a leg into which an important document rolled into a tube will fit.

Do-it-yourself or custom-made caches

It is very popular to place caches made from books on bookshelves. This does not require any special skills or expensive materials: the main thing is to choose the spines of the books in such a way that they look harmonious among the other publications on the shelf and do not attract attention to themselves.

You can try creating your own simple secret storage spaces inside or under countertops.

More complex projects are made to order from a good craftsman. This applies to secret drawers or special secret niches for storing various furniture inside.

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For example, the photo below shows a very interesting idea for arranging a convenient hiding place in the headboard.

And in a country house, you can even make a secret door disguised as a bookcase, or arrange a convenient hidden storage system inside the steps of a wooden staircase.

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How to make a hiding place in a closet with your own hands?

When you want to have a secret storage room at home, but don’t have enough money for a safe, which also requires special installation, you can build an invisible compartment in the wardrobe. It is better to make a hiding place in the closet at the stage of its assembly. In finished furniture, you can use the simplest techniques for creating secret cavities. First you need to decide from whom you intend to hide valuables. They make simple hiding places for children and their family, but to protect them from malicious strangers, you will need a “cunning” and intricate hiding place.

Sideboard with secret compartment

Double bottom drawer

Attach supports along the entire perimeter to the vertical walls of the box. They can be made from small wooden blocks. A plane made of the same material as the bottom of the box is laid on them. The distance between the false panel and the bottom should not be excessive, otherwise the small box will be noticeable compared to other boxes. Glue some trinket onto the false bottom that you can use to open the cache.

A glued whisk is provided to open the hiding place.

Short drawer with compartment at the back

Standard drawers on ball guides do not slide out completely due to the features of the fittings. If one of them is shorter than the others, no one will notice. In the space between the back wall of the cabinet and the drawer, arrange a hiding place - it could be some kind of box or something similar. Also, by analogy with a double bottom, you can make a false back wall of the box.

Hidden retractable cavities

They can be vertical and horizontal. For example, make one side of the cabinet support frame a drawer with a front cornice that is no different in appearance from other parts of the frame. In the likeness of a retractable vertical panel for shoes, make such a cabinet with a facade that imitates the vertical cornice of the partition between the sections of the cabinet. Install the cache on roller supports or hang it on ball guides. It is convenient to hide large items in such a cavity.

Manufacturing options

Well, I propose to consider the most popular places that can be used in furniture as storage and secret areas.

In general, no one limits you, since you can come up with an original hiding place yourself. But there are popular solutions, which I will tell you about.

• The back surface of the tabletop. That is, under it. You can implement a hiding place in different ways, from cutting out a groove for a retractable hiding place hidden behind a decorative overlay, to simply attaching important documents to tape;
• The space under the seats of chairs and banquettes. An interesting and quite effective solution that allows you to hide fairly large objects. To do this, a removable or liftable seat is made on a chair or stool, secured with a lock, for example. It is unlikely that it would occur to anyone to disassemble a stool and remove the pad;
• Hollow legs. These can be small legs, or quite long and voluminous structures. You can drill grooves in wooden legs yourself, or order ready-made structures made of metal, plastic and other materials. When drilling holes for the hiding place, do not forget to maintain the strength of the structure. Therefore, usually only one leg is converted into a hiding place;

• Bottom of the box. Quite a popular double bottom. The secret is to place another panel of the same material at the bottom of the box. The advantage is the ability to implement it already on a finished table;
• Hollow backs. Here, as in the case of the legs, only there is much more space. It all depends on the design of the headboard;
• Armrests. Relevant for armchairs and sofas. The hiding places can be made retractable or simply provided with cavities covered with decorative overlays. Such structures are made at the design stage. It is not always possible to easily remake a finished chair or sofa.

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The question of implementing this or that idea with a hiding place is extremely individual. Therefore, I cannot tell you about every method of making hidden storage.

As for me, it is better to provide hiding places in advance, that is, include them in the drawings and design of future furniture in your house, apartment, office and in any other room.

Doing it yourself or ordering from specialists depends on your capabilities and skills. Some secrets or hiding places can actually be made with your own hands. For more complex ideas, it is better to enlist the support of experts.

What examples of hiding places in furniture do you know?

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Make or order

I would highlight 4 main ways to get furniture pieces equipped with hiding places. Moreover, each of them is very attractive and suitable for solving their own issues for most consumers.

• Make it from scratch with your own hands. To do this, drawings are created or ready-made manufacturing schemes are used. Following the instructions, an element of furniture for the home or office is assembled;
• Remake finished furniture. A fairly common option that allows you to equip an item with a secret place through a small modernization. Moreover, it can have a variety of shapes, sizes and designs. It all depends on what exactly you will store there;
• Buy a finished product. There are companies and factories engaged in the production of such furniture items. The simplest option, but also the most dubious. There is a real opportunity to find out exactly where the secrets are and how they are made. Faced with such furniture, the thief will know exactly what is being opened and how;
• Order according to an individual project. Here all the secrets remain secret and are not disclosed. The drawing can be yours, or drawn up together with a specialist.

Hidden furniture has a number of advantages. However, it is not necessary to use it purely as a way to protect yourself from thieves. Some people use hidden storage to simply organize their desks and hide dangerous things from children who like to rummage through dad's drawers.

There are many options for using caches. This is not only the threat of becoming a victim of a thief. Some people need secrets for a completely different reason.

Materials for assembling a simple bedside table

To assemble furniture according to the project I developed, I needed the following:

• Set for creating hidden connections.
• Wooden dowels with a diameter of 1 cm, connected in 5 pieces.
• Wood glue.
• Clamps.
• Electric drill.
• Pull-out guides for a 25 cm long drawer.
• Metal hinges for the top cover.
• Clamp.

Below I list the main steps for building a nightstand.

What is good about this furniture:

• no one knows about the cache
• it is possible to hide money and valuables in the house without resorting to bulky safes;
• you can make a hiding place yourself, using different places;
• suitable for houses where there are servants and strangers;
• places inaccessible to children.

Of course, hiding places must be equipped with high quality so that even an experienced person cannot suspect their presence. Also, furniture with hiding places is useful in a house where a person goes on business trips or comes home late. To avoid breaking into your home and stealing personal belongings, you can plan for this in advance by making a hiding place in a chair or closet or other places.

Bedroom. Shelves inside the headboard

If you don’t want to fill the space under the bed, you can use a headboard: both ready-made designs with built-in drawers and free-standing narrow cabinets are sold. It is very convenient to store things in special compartments - they do not gather dust and are always at hand.

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In addition to books, you can store night cream, small decorative pillows, a change of bed linen or a blanket inside.

Table stand

The stand is assembled from six side walls. They are made of 15 mm thick MDF and are veneered on the outside with radially sawn maple veneer. The vertical edges of the walls are sawn at an angle of 60 degrees. Having temporarily assembled all six walls, the master determined the dimensions of the upper and lower supports so that they would fit accurately into the rack. The supports are made of MDF. They have holes drilled and countersunk for screws.

Then the master cleaned the inner surfaces of the walls, sealed the joints, coated them with wax and polished them. The stand - walls and supports - are assembled with glue using window clamps and clamps for picture frames. There is no need to glue one of the walls, which should become a door.

When the glue hardened, the master removed the door - and there were five walls attached to hexagonal bases. Using a hand plane, he chamfered it to create a 4mm wide edge. I glued strips of tulip edging to them with PVA glue and pressed them with adhesive tape until the glue dried.

Secret wine cellars, cabinets and safes

A secret door can be installed not only in a bookcase, wardrobe or staircase, but also in an ordinary stone wall, seemingly impenetrable and impenetrable. So, in the photo below, the designers placed wine bottles on the stone wall of the living room, turning them in the right direction, you can quickly get into the secret wine cellar of a country house . An unusual and original idea that will be the highlight of any private country or modern city home!

Living room stone wall leading to secret wine cellar.

Behind a secret door, hidden from outsiders, the owners of a house or apartment can hide a safe that will not be so easy for burglars to discover.

So, in the photo below we see a stylish rectangular mirror in a massive silver frame, the heavy mirror is literally mounted into the wall and it will not be easy to move it to reveal a reliable safe door hidden from prying eyes by the mirror.

A secret safe in a private home, hidden behind a wall mirror.

The designers of Creative Home Engineering never cease to amaze with their unusual and original ideas! So, in the photo below we see a stylish living room of a modern private house with a huge stone fireplace in a retro style, behind which hides the secret home office of the owner of the house. You can get into the office by literally passing through the fireplace, the inner part of which quickly moves to the side using the control panel, revealing a secret passage leading to the office.

Unusual living room fireplace leading to secret home office.

The designers of the Hidden Door Company disguised a hidden door behind a small counter with natural wood wines, behind which there is an entire wine cellar with valuable varieties of wine. Only the owners of the house who know the secret of the secret wine room can open the secret door.

Wine cabinet with a secret door leading to the wine cellar.